


the naming of cats

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: adrien augreste 2020 [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Name Changes, Names, Podfic Welcome, discussed name changes, nino regrets a lot, nino regrets his hiding place, post reveal carapace, post reveal for marinette and adrien, technically there is one bed, which technically is being shared
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25663984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "Dude, you know once we beat Hawkmoth you can go by whatever you want, right?" Nino finally offers, not entirely sure if it's the right thing to say.  He can't keep saying nothing, though, because he's not gonna let his friend think he's being ignored.  He never wants him to think that.  "Like, you're a hero of Paris, man. You wanna go ahead and change, just, like, your whole name to Chat Noir, pretty sure they'll let you.  Pretty sure they can't stop you, honestly."Plagg's quiet little rumble takes on a note of approval.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe
Series: adrien augreste 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860751
Comments: 50
Kudos: 399





	the naming of cats

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt 'athanase' (adriens fifth middle name). this sorta became names in general, bc... look, my name is karen, names have been a fairly frequent topic recently. (most everyone calls me kare, and ive never been too attached to names and have had like a dozen nicknames anyway, but it DOES keep coming up).
> 
> thank you to shinobicyrus for bein an awesome beta!

"You ever think about changing your name?" 

Nino doesn't sit up, because he's not an idiot, but he does blink up at the underside of Adrien's bed. He doesn't bother to shove the pillows and bedding blocking him in aside, because he knows Adrien's got good enough hearing to hear him anyway. Even if he somehow doesn't, Plagg will, and just because Plagg _says_ he won't play translator doesn't actually mean he won't. "No? I'm good with my name? Dude, what brought that on?" 

"I dunno." Adrien shifts. His bed is way too nice to squeal or have the kind of springs Nino has to worry about poking him, but that doesn't stop him wincing anyway. He still keeps _expecting_ springs and squeaking and a crushing lack of space. 

Well, he sorta has the crushing lack of space, but there was no way in hell he was gonna let Adrien dive under here instead. He told Adrien it was in case anyone came far enough into the room to know for sure which of them was in the bed, and that's not a lie, but also he was totally not ever gonna let Adrien try to shove himself into a space this small. Adrien would _do it,_ and then he'd keep trying to hide how bad he was panicking, and it would take Nino and Plagg both to get him even a little calmed down and they'd _still_ probably have to call Marinette. 

But Nino still desperately wishes he were out where he could see Adrien. Considering the sudden turn this conversation has taken, he'd kinda like to be in a position where he can hug Adrien, because holy shit does Adrien ever always need a hug.

It's lucky that Marinette has always given super good hugs.

It's unlucky that Nino can't see Adrien's face as he talks about changing his name.

Like hell is _I dunno_ an honest answer. If Adrien's bringing this up now, he's thought about it before. He's maybe talked to Plagg about it before, even, he talks to Plagg about everything.

Because Plagg definitely delights in being as irritating as he likes, but he also always listens. His responses aren't generally helpful, since they're mostly about cheese, but Nino learned quick that that's not actually what the responses are about. 

Adrien doesn't know if anyone's truly paid him any attention if he doesn't have a clear response. 

Nino narrows his eyes now, wishing for the thousandth time that Adrien's dad wasn't such a dick. If Nino hadn't had to _hide_ in such a hurry, then he'd be able to see Adrien's face. 

He waits, though, because he suspects-

Yeah, Plagg phases under the bed and gives Nino a _look._

Nino gives him one right back. 

Obviously satisfied, Plagg darts back up to Adrien. 

Nino sticks his tongue out childishly, figuring even if Plagg can't see him he'll still know somehow, and then turns his own attention back to Adrien too. "We kinda do change names though, don't we?" Alya's never stopped delighting in Rena Rouge. Now that the teasing's on the table, Marinette hasn't let go of Alya's initial 'Super Red Bug' for _weeks_ and that's just to Nino. Once Marinette can tease Alya directly he kinda doubts she's ever gonna let that one go.

"What?" 

Adrien sounds lost enough that Nino shifts and then punches the underside of the bed, as lightly as he can, making sure not to actually hit anywhere near Adrien. Nino can't exactly get much force behind his punch anyway, not cramped up under the bed as he is, but they do both hit a whole lot harder than they used to. Nino's not about to land any kind of blow anywhere near Adrien anyway. "Names, dude. Folks sure didn't name me Carapace, y'know." 

"Oh." Adrien sounds so startled. Nino's not sure if the purring that starts up right after is Adrien or Plagg or both. 

It would be nice to have Wayzz with him right now. 

Nino lets that thought float across his mind, then drops it again. It's something he's gotten a lot of practise at doing. 

Plagg would have alerted them already if there was any chance of them being overheard, but Nino still keeps himself quiet and relies more on Adrien's enhanced hearing than on his own volume. "Dude, it's my name, right? Like, I chose it and everything, I sign things with it and stuff. You do a hell of a lot more as Chat than I do as Carapace an' like, Carapace is _still_ my name." 

He can _hear_ how stiffly Adrien's holding himself. "So you... do you not like Nino?" 

"I like Nino fine," Nino says, a little blankly, still not totally sure where Adrien's going with this. He's starting to suspect, though. "I like Carapace too. They're both my name?" 

Plagg snickers darkly at the uncertain lilt Nino's voice picks up towards the end. Plagg still isn't _helping,_ though, so Nino feels totally justified in ignoring that. 

Adrien doesn't say anything. 

Nino tries to work his way back through the conversation, grimacing as he twists towards the wall to also try and work out the cramp he feels starting in his side. Adrien's bed is thankfully bigger than Nino's has ever been, so it's not horrifically cramped beneath it, but Nino's still not real thrilled to be stuck under it at all. 

But it had been Nathalie who came to make sure Adrien was in bed, not the Gorilla, and Nino's not taking his chances with Nathalie. Nino doesn't trust Nathalie.

Nino doesn't like that Nathalie had shown up just barely after _nine_ to insist Adrien go to sleep. It's Saturday. Nino has no idea how Adrien ever gets his homework done if she always does this. He kinda doesn't think she _does_ do this; he thinks maybe he hadn't been quiet enough sneaking out last time. 

Nino had also kind of been counting on the Gorilla, who always knocks and then politely waits long enough for Nino (or Marinette, or both) to scramble back out the window.

At least Rose and Luka both know where he is. The Liberty crew had taken to using a buddy system a while ago, back during the earliest akumatisations, and the second Nino had learned about it from Rose he'd asked if he could be included. That was _months_ ago, and it hadn't taken long to realise his friends have extended it way past just akuma safety, so if Nino's parents ever actually get around to noticing he's missing he knows one of his friends will cover for him. 

Realistically, if Rose and Luka both know he might as well have told Juleka, and Alya will cover for any of them on principle and Kim will do it automatically just because he thinks it's fun, and Max and Nath will too because they'll assume he has a good reason. The only one of them who's really risking trouble even if they're caught is Adrien. 

But Adrien is risking a _lot_ of trouble. 

Which means that if Nino has to sleep under the stupid bed tonight, he'll sleep under the stupid bed. At least it's warm. It's not like Adrien has any spare bedding, so Nino's gonna choose to appreciate warm. 

(He's also gonna try not to get angry over why Adrien doesn't have spare bedding). 

"... Do you... Not want us to call you Adrien?" Nino finally asks, feeling like he's catching at the edges of a concept and not quite getting it. Adrien's never _seemed_ to mind his name before...

"No. Well, I like Chat better, but that's not what I meant." Nino doesn't have to see Adrien to picture the face he's making. "Besides, that'd be a little too obvious, don't you think?" 

Nino pictures calling him Chat in class and muffles a laugh, because the very first thing that comes to mind is Chloé's indignant face. 

But if he really does want all of them to call him Chat, Nino's pretty sure he can swing that. He can try. He _will_ try. It won't be too hard to get the class to start using hero-based nicknames, and he already knows that Alya's instantly on their side. He thinks Marinette will be too, but she still gets anxious enough that they even know each other's identities that he's less sure of that, even though no one besides the three of them knows Adrien and Marinette's. Nino hasn't even admitted to Alya that he knows, although it's eating at him bad enough that Marinette's told him to just give her a few days before they all talk to Alya. Marinette knows how bad it hurts Nino to keep that secret (a little because Alya is her best friend after Chat, but mostly because she and Nino met when they were _five,_ they each know why the other's anxious), but it hurts Marinette in a different kind of way to give up a secret she's guarded so long and so fiercely. 

She's going to be _so freaked out_ if Adrien wants them to call him Chat all the time now.

But she hates seeing Adri- _Chat_ hurting even more than the rest of them. She'll be freaked, but she'll still do it. 

"Yeah, I guess Chat'd be kinda risky," Nino says, finally, and he's not surprised to see Plagg dart back down by him again. "But if it's what you want, dude, we can figure something out." 

"It's not-" Chat shifts again, then goes unnaturally still as he obviously remembers Nino's just under him. "I don't really care about Adrien most of the time." 

That phrasing doesn't escape Nino. That phrasing _worries_ Nino. He makes a careful mental note to revisit this conversation later. Possibly with Marinette for backup. Possibly with Marinette and Tikki, since just Nino and Plagg are probably not gonna cut it for that, at least not right now. Not when Chat is trying to ask about something else and Nino is stuck under the stupid bed and Plagg is being weirdly unhelpful. 

Plagg is staring at him right now, green eyes wide and unblinking, and Nino stares back. 

Chat's voice is muffled when he speaks again, like he's shoved his face into a pillow. "I don't like Agreste." 

Plagg blinks just as Nino does, but when Nino's eyes open the kwami's gone again. Back up to comfort his kid, probably, even if a swarm of akuma couldn't make Plagg admit that's what he's doing. 

Nino's first urge is to make a stupid joke about how _Agreste_ is easy enough to fix, but he shoves it down. As sure as he is that Marinette's parents are already planning the celebration for when Chat ends up openly part of their family, he kinda doubts this is only about the name itself. They're in the Agreste _Manor_ right now, and while Nino thinks it might be telling that Chat's dad put his own name on his brand himself rather than the Agreste name there's still an association there. 

Adrien admitting to wanting to go by a different name isn't really new, or even much of a surprise. He's too obviously a lot happier as Chat, and Chat Noir is a name he got to choose for himself back before he'd really been allowed to choose _anything_ for himself. 

But admitting that he doesn't want to be an _Agreste_ is in a whole different ballpark. 

And Nino's pretty sure that's what he's doing. 

"Dude, you know once we beat Hawkmoth you can go by whatever you want, right?" Nino finally offers, not entirely sure if it's the right thing to say. He can't keep saying nothing, though, because he's not gonna let his friend think he's being ignored. He never wants him to think that. "Like, you're a _hero of Paris,_ man. You wanna go ahead and change, just, like, your whole name to Chat Noir, pretty sure they'll let you. Pretty sure they can't _stop_ you, honestly." 

Plagg's quiet little rumble takes on a note of approval. 

Chat doesn't just shift this time, he moves enough that Nino thinks he must have flipped over onto his side. Nino winces, anticipating having to duck or dodge, but the bed is better built than that. Stupid rich people beds. "Father's not going to care about whether the city will let me." 

Yeah, he doesn't care about _you,_ Nino barely bites back. It's true, but saying it will only hurt his friend, and Chat doesn't deserve that.

Instead, Nino offers, "He can't really stop you if we _defeat Hawkmoth,_ dude. I think that kinda destroys any objections he's gonna have." Also it's not like Chat's dad can do anything to stop a whole city from going along with his son's name change, but Nino can figure out for himself that that's not what Chat's hang-up here is. 

It sounds like he doesn't want his _dad_ to call him Agreste, and possibly not Adrien either, and the implications of that are huge and terrifying and no wonder Chat sounded so skittish when he first brought it up. 

Very quietly, Chat says, "I hope you're right. About the city letting me."

That's the closest Nino thinks they're gonna get tonight to an actual admission that he _does_ want to change his name. 

Chat goes quiet after that, though Nino kinda doubts he's sleeping. Nino isn't sleeping either. Nino pulls out his phone, makes sure the light's not showing, and starts drafting one hell of a message to Marinette. He doesn't wanna tell her anything he doesn't think Chat's ready for her to know, but he also knows that _he's_ gonna need Marinette for this.

Sneaking Nino out in the morning isn't hard. Plagg actually offered to transform him, although between the kwami's gritted teeth and the worried way he kept looking at Chat's ring nothing in the world could have convinced Nino to take him up on it. 

Nino doesn't miss the look of faint approval Plagg shoots him on the way out. 

Nino looks up at the sky, dawn still streaking it in reds and purples because who _knows_ how early Nathalie's gonna show back up, and then he turns and heads in the opposite direction of home. 

Either no one's caught him missing yet, or no one's decided to care just yet. 

And Nino does know an adult who knows something about changing your legal name. Two, if you count Anansi, but Nino's not actually totally sure of Anansi's age or if, like, she's actually changed her name or if they've all just silently agreed to go with it. Luka's mom, though, was definitely not originally named Anarka. 

She's mentioned it a couple times already when Adrien was over or Rose or Kagami were too quiet. She's dropped it into conversations in a way that had been just that little bit too casual.

And both Anansi and Luka's mom are always so up for chaos that Nino's already dreading any chance of either of them meeting Plagg. If this is what Adrien wants, they'll be so on board to help.

Once Hawkmoth is defeated, Nino doubts even Adrien's dad could put a stop to his changing his name, but it's always good to have another plan. 

(At that thought, he sends Marinette another message, too. It's _also_ always good to have backup). 

**Author's Note:**

> not sure how obvious this is but i have slept under someone elses bed before. its not comfortable. 
> 
> titles for the t.s. eliot poem!
> 
> ive personally got a dragon symbol i use for a signature, i did not realise the frequency until i did NOT use it on little brothers gift this past year (bc free giftwrapping, included tags) and he thought thered been a mistake. the fact that it was signed with _my actual given name_ was apparently not helpful??


End file.
